Oh, apparently the original movie was 152 minutes long. The episode is 90 minutes, including host segments, so they had to cut out roughly half the movie. Can you imagine sitting through the whole thing unriffed?

They LIE!... this is not by William Shakespeare. Sure they use some of his lines. The basic plot is by Bill, other than that....

I am sure the trimming for MST3K helped remove a lot of the lines, but... Rosencrantz and Guildenstern don't even have a line in this production. They are not even mentioned by name. Pelonious never instructs his kids to avoid work in the financial industry. In the original play, Hamlet discusses suicide BEFORE he instructs Ophilia to become a sister == or a whore (I know. I mentioned that already as a response to one of the notes in here, but..). I, personally, believe that Bill would NOT be offended by this episode. I think that, if he were still here, he would have gladly sat in with Mike 'n da bots and tossed in a few of his own riffs.

I can imagine the crowd at the Globe Theater yelling out smartass comments during the plays. "Oi! Cleopatra forgot to shave!" "Just DIE already!" and things like that. William Shakespeare might appreciate riffing.

One of the worst interpretations of the Bard's work, and yet some of the better riff. I suppose the biggest help with that is the power of the work itself being so well-known, so even the audience is laughing at the incompetence of it's version.

Sometimes a joke is just too damn perfect. The sword fight is going on. Both Hamlet and Laerties are wounded (of course, Laerties is dying faster). Hamlet's mom has just died, and Laerties exclaims, "The king's to blame. The king." Which makes Crow cry out, "God blame the king." (As opposed to the normal statement, "God save the king.") I didn't notice the joke before, but this time... And I like it.

I've always loved this episode. It's the second one I saw (the first was Werewolf) and seeing such a wide range of movies that they riffed was a good introduction for me way back when. :) Personally, I think a lot of Shakespeare isn't as amazing as we're told it is. Romeo and Juliet, for example, is a story of two idiotic teenagers who are stupid and kill themselves when there was no need to do so. And that's what I got out of the play when I WAS a teenager, too. I prefer his fantasies and histories to his tragedies.

MST3K stretches in its final season, taking on a famed script (if poo production). While some of the riffs are about the poor production, others are stuff you've wanted to say ever since seeing Shakespeare in high school.

I love this episode! Not because they are riffing Shakespeare...because they are not. They are riffing this HORRIBLE interpretation. They have fun with the ghastly delivery of lines, the staging(in someone's basement?) and the fact that the film so cuts Hamlet to shreds, that you can hardly follow the story line. If anything, the boys did a GREAT job poking fun at those that would murder a Shakespearean classic like this! Kudos!

I never could get into this episode, but all of these positive comments made me try it a couple more times and it just can't sink in, especially because Max Schell is famous, and not in the John Carradine or Alan Hale, Jr. way.

Hamlet is only movie done by MST3K with a great storyline. It's a decently made movie, and the acting isn't bad either. The German accent is funny as well. HOWEVER, one could riff on SHAKESPEARE'S works with ease. The time has come for the crew to get bold, and riff apart this classic. Thanks for taking something everyone knows and giving it "THE TREATMENT."I know we'll all appreciate and enjoy...HAMLET...sounds like baby piggy name.

My favorite part of this is the scene at about 22:00 where Hamlet just walks into Ophelias room and doesn't say anything. I performed Hamlet on stage twice in school and while this moment is IMPLIED in the dialog, I don't remember actually seeing it as a written scene in the play...is it? Anyway, it's so ridiculously literal here that the jokes basically write themselves.

My ALL TIME favorite Shakespeare play. I love searching for and finding all of the varied theatrical production forms ( of which there are sooo many) just to find reasons to love it even more. THIS presentation first seemed like a really gloomy stinker, and I'll admit I only watched half of it the first time. However, as with many seemingly unwatchable episodes, I tried again and really listened to the riffs closely , and I found myself going back to Hamlet over and over, and now it's in my top 15 all time favorites list. Wow, if only it was full length!